Eco-licious

my new favorite thing to make from potatoes my husband rescues from his store that would otherwise be tossed? potato bread, courtesy of my trusty Good Housekeeping Cookbook I’ve had for almost 25 years!

Oh, let the rain come downLet the wind blow through meI’m living in an empty roomWith all the windows smashedAnd I’ve got so little left to loseThat it feels just like I’m walking on broken glass

Wow – just 2 1/2 months left until this year, this crazy messed up year full of heartbreak and change, is up. Thank fuck for that, and here is hoping that it was rock bottom with the only way in 2018 being UP. Up for this country, this global community, this life that has dealt so many of us some real doozies…it’s time to help each other sweep up the broken glass and find a new way to love and happiness and peace and all the good we can imagine for ourselves and each other.

So with that, here’s what’s shakin’ in the online world for moi…

As we continue to consolidate our possessions and sell things that really aren’t necessary (this week: sixty bucks brought in from selling 3 Ikea storage baskets that matched nothing, a smoothie maker not used in over a year, and a guest bedroom side table that was collecting dust), and think about what our next home will be like, both aesthetically and environmentally, watching Life Off Grid, about a diverse group of Canadians sprinkled around the country, from BC to the Northwest Territories, who “have chosen to build their lives around renewable energy, with beautiful, inspiring, and often challenging results.” I loved it, not because I want to completely unplug and be hundreds of miles from civilization and never see a city again and build a wind turbine and poop in an outhouse, but because it challenges your assumptions on how to live life sustainably that go far beyond bringing your own bag to the grocery store. Lots of great ideas and lots of reality checks for any city folk contemplating off-grid living. Favorite quote? “I don’t understand why people are so afraid of their own poop but not of using chlorine bleach!” My takeaway from this documentary? It’s now non-negotiable that we’ll be installing composting toilets in our new casa, and confirmed my decision to get away from natural gas. Or as I told my husband just last week, “I don’t want anything coming into my house that could potentially blow it up“. PS – click here to read why induction cooktops are actually MORE energy efficient and better performing than gas, dispelling many a myth.

Hopefully y’all took time to read my post yesterday on hypocrisy. Shortly after posting it, I saw this article in the Guardianabout ob/gyns who shame rape victims and was so repulsed. I’ve always gone to ob/gyns instead of GPs for the most part, and if they don’t show true empathy and a focus on holistic health, I’m outta there. How else can you expect to talk about such devastating events like rape and infertility if they are NOT advocating for patients? Like the author said, “When we, in America, still live in a highly saturated rape culture, even talking about survivor-shaming feels like an uphill battle. But while it’s understood that gynaecologists are not expected to dual as counselors or psychologists, their choices in how they care for a patient undoubtedly play a role in the healing process of sexual assault survivors.”

Something in 2016 always kind of creeped me out about Bernie Sanders. Sure on the outside he seemed like a cool old guy with an attitude, but I remember during the debates I thought, this guy is a mansplainer and a yeller, not someone who’s going to empathize but who’s just going to holler like the future #45 was. Hillary Clinton is right about Bernie Sanders and seeing how Sanders has been with her criticism of his behavior during the election cycle, my gut instincts were confirmed on this guy. While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ultimately formed one of the greatest political partnerships after 2008, Bernie Sanders decided to focus on “a campaign of character assassination, instead of doing a deep dive into policy,” which when he lost meant more points for the Republican party, rather than joining together to be authentically on the same path. With her book calling out his behavior, his response is to try and silence the woman who won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. “Predictably, the response from the Sanders left and the Trump right has been about the same: Shut up and go away. This is after the demands that she “take responsibility” and “apologize.”.…Is the relitigation of the primary pleasant? No. Is a look at what happened, from the perspective of the only woman in American history to be a hair’s width away from the presidency, a pretty valuable contribution? Yes.”

And speaking of old fucks, I am glad Hugh Hefner’s wrinkly old sexist ass is six feet under. I wanted to vomit when I saw women from The Talk discuss him like he was some great bastion for civil rights simply because he did an interview with Dr King and give him credit for starting the sexual revolution because he had a nudie magazine. Does no one remember Gloria Steinem’s experience undercover as a Bunny, or that rapist Bill Cosby liked to frequent his parties at the mansion? The New York Times called him out, saying, “What began with talk of jazz and Picasso and other signifiers of good taste ended in a sleazy decrepitude that would have been pitiable if it wasn’t still so exploitative…And his appreciation of male-female difference was rotten, too — the leering predatory sort of appreciation…the sort that nicknames quaaludes “thigh openers” and expects the girls to laugh, the sort that prefers breast implants to female intellect and rents the charms of youth to escape the realities of age…only prudish Christians and spoilsport feminists are willing to say that the man was obviously wicked and destructive, is itself a reminder that the rot Hugh Hefner spread goes very, very deep.”

So while he’s dead and we’ve got the biggest piece of shit out there in the White House, amen for Justin and Sophie Trudeau. nothing makes me want to become a Canadian more than his recent statement to Marie Claire magazine, stating, “Our sons have the power and the responsibility to change our culture of sexism.” Acting like women are responsible for ending sexism is like expecting people of color to take responsibility for ending racism. It’s fucking ridiculous.

But there is a ray of hope right here in the US, right here in the Pacific Northwest up in Seattle where I am proud to have spent the majority of my 20s. Read about the nonprofit Weld, that “assists people released from prison with housing, placing them in buildings soon to be demolished. Weld partners with the owners of vacant buildings to provide the housing. In return for letting the program use their space, property owners don’t have to worry about squatters moving in.”

And with that? Some music of course to go with the lyrics at the top of this blog…

Yep, felt sick when people were all “heff is so great”. Yeah, reducing women to bunnies and exploiting them to make himself a lot of money, so great. Pretty sure the sexual revolution and Dr King would have succeeded without Heff and his magazine. The Marilyn Monroe nudes that launched the magazine were printed WITHOUT her permission!!